


Not Today

by AzureMist



Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Miracle Mask, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask, RanHen, but I think it’s time period appropriate??, but he’s getting therapy so good for him ig??, but like he didn’t ACTUALLY die so....., divorce mention, doesnt PL take place in like the 1900s or somethin, in which Henry is a big sad gay baby and needs a hug, presumably I mean, self hatred, this is just. a lot of angst fam, violence on inanimate objects
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-01-19
Packaged: 2019-10-12 18:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17472794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AzureMist/pseuds/AzureMist
Summary: Henry reflects on how he fell for his best friend, Randall Ascot, along with Randall’s death, and how it affects his life today.Takes place before Miracle Mask.





	Not Today

You know, everyone expects me to be moving on soon. In all honesty, I doubt that. But, at the very least, if I’m moving on someday, that day isn’t today, that’s for sure.

I don’t remember when I first met him. I was young, in my defense, but how weird is that to think about? How can the memory of the moment that changed my life forever be fuzzy around the edges, much less blurred out of sight?

I do remember what lead up to it. Mother divorced Father, despite my father being the breadwinner. Left devoid of cash, my mother decided to take up the role of a servant, and she even had me working as a young, young child, in order to get extra money. I remember holding onto her dress on my way to the Ascot household for the first time, and I remember her saying that I would serve their son in particular. But… It stops once the door is opened.

I’m positive I just saw him for what he was. A kid who wore his bedhead like it was a trendy style, with freckles and a horrible sense of fashion. And he was the person who I would be serving for; so I disregarded him as a person, and registered him as a boss.

I’d heard my mother complain about serving Randall’s parents; how demanding they were and such. I couldn’t deny that she looked exhausted all of the time. So, I expected the same experience with this redheaded boy… But I guess I forgot one crucial thing. He was just that; a boy.

I constantly asked him if he needed something, and the most he ever asked of me was a glass of water. Otherwise, he would just smile at me. The requests he usually gave me were along the lines of, “Hehe, I ‘command’ you to play robots with me!” Randall didn’t really want much, it seemed, except for a friend.

That was alright with me. My father never called, and mother tended to be busy, other than the occasional scolding for me. So, from young boys, Randall and I grew close. Going on what he claimed was ‘adventures’, when, in reality, we were just going across the street to get some pop. In his own way, though… He did make everything into an adventure. Singing a tune from some action movie, holding my hand as he ran ahead… It made life with him have color. Every time he spoke, I felt him wiping away the monochrome hue from my eyes, and I could see the world as colorful as it was.

Mother only had that small house to keep me separate from work as a baby. So, with no need for that any longer, the Ascot residence became my new home. Every night was like a sleepover; and when I got nightmares, I passed up my mother’s sleeping area in favor for Randall’s room, where he let me climb into his bed and snuggle up close. He was warm. And I fell asleep by focusing on trying to make our breathing match.

Those early times were scary sometimes. I was a child who had a job, who had to work to provide for my mother and myself. I was always scared of messing up, especially because of my mother’s strictness… But when I was with Randall, I felt safe. I was able to feel like a child again. The world was colorful.

And that’s how it was for a long, long time. Just the two of us, unable to be torn apart. When I talked to him, or… Just listened; just listened to him talk about fossils and treasure with that wonderful glimmer in his eye… I felt like I was in a bubble of white light, protecting us from the scary outside world and the looming threat of growing up.

Then, around… Oh… Middle school, maybe, Randall brought home another friend. Hershel Layton.

I didn’t dislike Hershel, don’t mistake me here. He was kindhearted and quiet, and helped keep Randall in line when I couldn’t. But, suddenly, it wasn’t just Randall and I anymore. There was this intruder trying to break into our bubble. Even looking back on it now, I wouldn’t say I was jealous… I was just panicked about the change. Things were changing again, and at the time I wanted them to change the least.

Something important you have to know is that, back when I was a child… Well, ‘the gays’ were talked about sparingly, especially when it came to high-class people like the Ascots. But I sometimes overhead Randall’s father talking about his ‘sick brother’. I assumed this mystery brother had a cancer of some kind; which would explain his live-in male roommate. Some sort of doctor, maybe…?

But, over time, I pieced together what was really happening. Randall’s uncle was sick in the head. Mentally ill. He was in love with his roommate… His male roommate. Gross, right?

But when I heard about this, my stomach twisted. I felt like throwing up. I didn’t know that this ‘sickness’ was possible; that it was physically possible to like another boy. But now that I knew it was possible, I couldn’t help but wonder…

Was I sick, too?

Was this sickness behind the feeling of safety I felt around Randall? Was this why, when Randall smiled, it felt like something warm spilt in my heart, and why when he laughed (full-on snort-laughed), I felt like I would give a kidney to hear it again? Was this why I felt my face go hot when he touched my skin? Was this not a strong feeling of friendship and platonic companionship, like I had thought?

I had to know more. Was this sickness going to cause me harm? Would it affect anything else as I grew up? My vision, my hearing? What was happening to me?

What was wrong with me?

I was wondering all of this when Hershel came along. Change was the last thing I needed at that time… But there was nothing I could do about it. I tried to put a lid on my feelings, and shove them into a dark corner of my heart.

Even if I was sick, wouldn’t it be selfish to ever want to date Randall when being his friend was basically the best thing that ever happened to me?

Then high school hit, and on came puberty. And suddenly, girls were all Randall could talk about.

He talked about all sorts of girls. He talked about the blonde girl who he liked, and the girl with pretty eyes who flirted with him. More and more, especially loud when other people were around. I expected these feelings to come to me, too, sometime soon. Maybe this sickness of mine could be grown out of?

No. It only got worse with age.

While Randall drooled over girls, all I could notice were boys. How they talked, how they moved… I was going absolutely, positively boy-crazy. And that was a problem when there was a very kindhearted, and very, very handsome boy within the range of my home, at literally all times.

I wish I could say I just began to notice how nice he was, because that would be less embarrassing, but it was more than that. It was how his muscles moved under his shirt, and how he smelled like pine trees and the outdoors. But not in a gross way… In a nice way. It was how his skin was dusted with sweet freckles and how he showed his gums when he smiled. I saw all of it, and I couldn’t try to deny to myself anymore that I was head-over-heels, stupidly, helplessly in love with my best friend, Randall Ascot.

Do you know what it’s like to live with the person you love? It’s like living with fire. You want to get close… You’re so memorized by its every flicker and glow. But it’s dangerous… Because if you touch it. Well. You burn. But you can’t help but wonder how that beautiful fire; that beautiful, dangerous fire; feels on your skin.

I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to burn. I couldn’t tell him I was sick. Even if he was sick too… Where would that lead us? We would still be mentally ill. And would that mean I was dragging Randall down with me? And if I told him I was sick, and he was normal, then I would be absolutely ruined. Not only would I lose my best friend, but he would tell everyone. And I would be on the streets faster than you can say ‘rejection’. That’s what happened to Randall’s uncle, anyway…

I lived in constant fear. I hated myself. I hated myself so much, and I wanted to push it onto someone else. Anyone else. I was looking for someone to hate.

And then, Angela began to date Randall.

And it was like every cell in my body locked onto her, and said, “Yes. That one.”

It’s… Silly, looking back on it. Unlike Hershel, I was jealous of Angela. So jealous that I hated everything about her. I took out everything; my self-hatred, my confusion, my unrequited love; onto her. Well… That would imply that I was… Bullying her. I wasn’t. I internalized it all, just like before. But at least all of these feelings weren’t for myself.

The worst thing I would do is that I would interrupt whenever she and Randall got ‘alone time’. Because thinking about those two kissing, or doing anything beyond that, made me… Not angry… But sad. It was kind of pathetic… But I was still holding onto that hope, that silly little hope, that I might be Randall’s first kiss.

Thinking about Randall and I being together like that… Kissing… It made me feel like I was surrounded in warm, fluffy clouds.

Anyways, I didn’t do anything to Angela. I just wallowed in my own pathetic bitterness and my worries and my love, and it all molded together into a horrible, horrible goopy mess, lying in my stomach for most of my teenage years.

Yes, I eventually did learn to like Angela, once I figured out I was being incredibly silly about this whole thing. I was only hurting myself more by putting energy into hating someone who didn’t even do anything wrong. We bonded a lot over not only Randall, but also our common interests in books. And, with time, Hershel and Angela became a part of our bubble, and it didn’t feel as crowded anymore. I began to feel like, maybe… Maybe… Things were going to be okay.

I had it all planned. Randall would never have to know how I felt, and he would marry Angela, completely and utterly clueless. I would be his best man, and I would hand him off to Angela. Not because I loved him any less, but because I loved him so, so much. At least, this way, I would get to see him smile and laugh in the arms of someone who loved him like I did, rather than him finding out how I felt, and leaving me for good.

Then he died.

When we found out, Angela began to cry on the spot. But I went numb. My eyes wide, my mouth agape, and I felt absolutely, positively nothing.

It was on the way home that it hit me.

The love of my life, Randall Ascot, had fallen into a pit and died a painful, horrible death. We didn’t even know where his body was. It was likely covered in blood, lying limp, a shell of the wonderful boy it once was. I would never see his eyes again. I would never see him smile again, or laugh again. Randall… My sweet Randall… Was dead in a pit.

And now, I would go my entire life without kissing him, or telling him how much I loved him.

I went home alone that day. Angela and Hershel went somewhere, I can’t remember where. But once I was alone… In the house that he and I grew up in together…

I had, what Angela so lovingly called, a ‘Hen-rage attack’.

All of the feelings I had been trying to repress; sadness, stress, frustration, hatred, and the stinging loss of love; came up all at once in a violent outburst, and I absolutely wrecked the house that wasn’t even mine to begin with.

When I was done, I was covered in dust. My knuckles were bleeding profusely, and I tasted metal in my mouth, as well. And I was in the middle of all of this carnage, sobs violently going through my body. I didn’t feel any better. I thought this would help. But it didn’t.

Because Randall Ascot was still dead.

That feeling of helplessness… That is my motivation now.

I faked my marriage to Angela, so I wouldn’t have to believe that Randall Ascot was dead. I spent thousands of dollars of exploration missions so I wouldn’t have to believe that Randall Ascot was dead. I created and was the mayor of a whole city so I wouldn’t have to believe that Randall Ascot was dead. I worked hard every day, so I wouldn’t ever have to succumb to that horrible, horrible feeling ever again.

Is this denial? Was this just pushing off the inevitable time when I would have to accept Randall’s passing? Probably. Well, that’s what my therapist says, anyways.

Yes, Angela and I both went to therapy. Sometimes together, usually separately… And, every meeting, she would suggest ways to ‘move on’.

“Your whole life revolves around you living in your past,” she would say. “You need to live in the now.”

She suggested that I visit Randall’s grave every day, and talk to it like he was there. Then, after a month, I would tell him goodbye. I did that… But when the day came to say goodbye, I couldn’t bring myself to say it. That word… That simple ‘farewell’… It was stuck on my tongue, and choked my throat. I ended up leaving the gravestone without saying a word.

Then, she tried a different approach; she told Angela to take away the robot that Randall gave to me as a child, without telling me. Real great idea, that one. I went into a full-on rage again, and teared up the house trying to find the robot; my precious comfort item. Angela returned to a house that looked absolutely destroyed on the inside, and me in the middle of it, sobbing, and trying to retrace my steps of the past month on a piece of paper. Safe to say, that didn’t work.

Then, she suggested writing a letter to say goodbye to Randall. I like writing, so… I tried it.

So I sat at my desk, staring at a blank piece of paper. I licked my lips and began, ‘Dearest Randall.’

‘It’s just that…’ I erased that.

‘Do you remember…’ No good, either.

‘I think that…’ No, no, no.

None of it was good enough. None of it was enough to say how much I felt for him. Despite the wonderful, wide variety of words, there was simply no way to tell him exactly how I felt, in any language.

So, instead, I wrote this:

‘Dearest Randall,

You know, everyone expects me to be moving on soon. In all honesty, I doubt that. But, at the very least, if I’m moving on someday, that day isn’t today, that’s for sure.

Love until the last star dies,

Henry Ledore.’

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are appreciated!!


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